Les and other uninformed glib posters, it is resolved that the quality of the cars built in the US leave something to be desired, but we have to acknowledge that we now live in a country of whiners that want, want, want but do not want to pay the price. It is for that sole consumerist attitude that China's economy has exploded the way it has. I grew up in the Caribbean, I am American but my parents drove English cars until Toyota brought the Crown to the Islands, in the mid-eighties the car was still using points ignition while it was immensely more reliable than the Rovers or Jaguars that were in the family it was low tech but it worked. Toyota was borne out of the Japanese war machine much like there German and American counterparts, I know that they were not initially as heavily tied to their respective governments as they are now but they all have government officials sitting on their Board of Directors. The Japanese do not have to deal with legacy cost of employees/retirees drawing extented pensions as Americans are living longer and Porsche Cayenne driving doctors are incredibly expensive, they have state mandated medical coverage and when they were struggling they were subsidized by their government. During the development of their scaled economies these foreign corporations paid heavy sums to the government in Germany and Japan here in the U.S. they are given tax breaks, but we are driven by individuals not a communal or common wealth (I am not a Marxist) so we are in the what is in it for me camp, as such we have individual accruing more and more wealth (see Nardelli post Home Depot $220M). I can go on but I want to stay on point.